Contact support for relays



March 9 1926. j 1,575,903

' F. F. DORSEY CONTACT SUPPORT FOR RELAYS Filed August 27-, 1923llnvemmm Patented Mar. 9, 1926.

units starts rares FARNUM F. DORSEY, or nccnns'rnn, new roan, Assrenon'ro non'rrr Easr ELEC- TRIG COMPANY, OF Bocnnsrnn, NEW YORK, ACORPORATION on new YORK.

CONTACT SUPPORT FOR RELAYS.

Application filed August 27, 1923. Serial No. 859,566.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FARNUM F. DonsnY, a citizen of the United States,residing at Rochester, in the county of Monroe and State of New York,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Contact Supportsfor Relays; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear,and exact description of the invention, suclras will enable othersskilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to means for supporting a contact in anelectromagnetic instrument of the relay type.

In instruments of the type in question,-

particularly when used for regulating dynamo-electric machines, thecontacts sometimes are made of carbon, with wide, flat faces, and insuch cases it is desirable that the contacts be so adjusted as to meetsquarely throughout their cooperative surfaces. It has heretofore beenproposed to secure the result by mounting one of the contacts with aspherical joint capable of universal angular adjustment; and the objectof the present invention is to providea contact-support in which thismode of adjustment is embodied in a simple, compact and effectivemanner.

To the foregoing end the invention consists in the contact-supportillustrated in the accompanying drawlngs and hereinafter described, asit is defined in the annexed claims.

In the drawings, Fig. 1 is a side-elevation,

partly in section, of a contact-support embodying the present invention,together with adjacent parts of the relay in which it is used, and Fig.2 is a cross-section of the contact-support on the line 2-2 in Fig. 1,

looking upward.

The invention is illustrated as embodied in a relay having two carboncontacts, 5 and 6, of which the former is carried and actuated by anarmature 7. The contact 6 is embraced by a shell 8 drawn fromsheetmetal, and the upper part of this shell has the form of a segmentof a sphere, the center of curvature being located approximately at themiddle of the contact-face.

The shell 8 is seated on the concave lower surface of a head 9 formed atthe lower end of a stem 10. This stem is threaded through atermlnal-block 11, which may be mounted in any convenient way on astationary part of the instrument.

The shell 8 is clamped to the head 9 by means of a bolt 12 which extendsthrough an axial perforation in the stem 10. The shell portion andclamps it firmly to its seat in the head 9, the parts being tightenedand iegured by a nut 14 on the upper end of the To prevent rotation ofthe bolt when the nut is turned, the head 9 is provided with atransverse slot, and a lug 15 is pressed out from the material of thebolt in position to engage the slot. The slot has another valuablefunction, resulting from the fact that it divides the head into twoparts capable of a slight relative springing movement. When the bolt istightened the convex surface of the shell 8 springs these parts awayfrom each other, and altho the movement is very slight it tends tosecure a resilient pressure and frictional engagement between the partsby which loosening of the bolt in consequence of vibration or of thermalexpansion and contraction is prevented.

The terminal block 11 is cleft horizontally and provided with aclamp-screw 16 by which it may be caused to clamp the stem 10 inadjusted position.

When the contacts are to be adjusted the screw 16 and the nut 14 areboth loosened, and the contact 6 then automatically accom modates itselfto the angle of the contact 5 under the influence of the spring-pressureof the armature. The stem 10 may then be screwed up or down, ifrequired, to adjust the air-gap of the instrument. The screw 16 and thenut 14 are then tightened, thus locking the parts in adjusted position.

The invention claimed is:

l. The combination, with a wide, flat contact, of a shell embracing thecontact and having a spherically-curved, centrally-perforated rearportion; a stem axially perforated and provided with a head recessed toprovide a seat for the spherical portion of the shell; and a boltpassing through the perforations in the stem and the shell and 1, inwhich said head issplit to provide a 10 having a head Within the latterand a nut plurality of relatively yielding resilient p01 at the remoteend of the stem. tions.

2. A contact-support, as defined in claim 4. A contact-support, asdefined in claim 5 1, comprising, further, a terminal-block, in 1, inwhich the head is transversely slotted which the stem is threaded,provided With and the bolt ispi'ovided with a lateral pro- 15 means forclamping the stem in adjusted jection engaging the slot. positiontherein.

3. A contact-snppoii't, as defined in claim FARNUM F. DORSEY.

